


The Women of Pompeii

by orphan_account



Category: Cambridge Latin Course
Genre: F/F, F/M, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-29
Updated: 2011-05-29
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:21:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caecilius leads a new slave-girl into the house. Metella is sitting in the atrium. (A translation of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/140452">Pompeianae</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Women of Pompeii

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Pompeianae](https://archiveofourown.org/works/140452) by [Tevildo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tevildo/pseuds/Tevildo). 



> [Tevildo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tevildo/) wrote a fantastic story for me in Yuletide 2010, and this is an English translation from the original Latin. I'm sorry that it took me several months to finish this after I'd mentioned putting up a translation! It's a little rough in places, but I'd love for more people to read this story. Corrections are greatly welcomed.

## Stage 1: The slave-trader

  


### In the atrium

Metella is sitting in the atrium. It is her birthday. Caecilius is away. Metella is sad, because Caecilius cares nothing about her birthday. Metella intently looks at the door.

Hurrah! Caecilius enters the house.

Alas! He leads a very beautiful girl!

Clemens looks at the girl. Clemens is happy. Grumio looks at the girl. Grumio is happy. Metella also looks at the girl, but she is very worried. She says to herself, "Now Lucius shows his plan. For he wants the pretty girl, not his aging wife!"

### The gift

Caecilius enters the atrium. He is leading Melissa. Caecilius is very happy.

Caecilius: Hello, my Metella!

Metella: Lucius, my dearest!  
(Metella turns to Melissa.)  
Who is this girl?

Caecilius: This slave-girl is Melissa. Today I bought her from Syphax. Although I handed over much money to Syphax, I did not reproach him. For Melissa cooks the best dinner, and she learns the Latin language, and she is both learned and beautiful. Does she please you?

Metella: (sadly) Yes, Melissa pleases me. She is the best slave-girl.

Caecilius: I am very happy! Because Melissa is your gift.

(Metella smiles, and takes Caecilius and gives him a kiss.)

Metella: My Lucius, how I love you!

### Metella weaves

Melissa is Metella's new hairdresser. She elegantly puts together Metella's dress and hair. Metella often praises Melissa, because she works hard and skillfully. Melissa always pleases Metella, because she is pretty and kind.

Melissa is certainly the best gift!

In the morning Metella and the slave-girls are weaving, but Melissa does not sit in front of the loom. She sings. Melissa's voice is not the sweetest, but the slave-girl knows many Greek songs. Melissa was reciting the poems of Meleager, now of Sappho, because both poets were very pleasing to Metella.

"Lucius avoids Greek poems, because they are depraved," Metella says to herself. "I, however, although I listen to them, am not depraved, because I am weaving with slave-girls! It is proper, not depraved, for a Roman woman to weave."

## Stage 2: Metella and Melissa

  


### In the house

Once Grumio and Clemens were watching the chariots, which were competing in the track. Meanwhile Melissa was staying alone in the house, because she did not love the chariots. Thus, it was necessary for Melissa to cook dinner and write letters.

In the study, Melissa tried to work. Everywhere, however, piles of wax tablets were filling the study, and pens and papyrus were lying on the table. Therefore Melissa arranged the study. In the chest, which was standing in front of the wall, she put the papyrus sheets, and removed the pens, and brought the wax tablets into the storeroom, which was near the garden. Then at last Melissa could write the letters.

Melissa, as soon as she had finished the thing, hurried to the forum, because she wanted to buy food for dinner. The shopkeepers, however, were watching the chariots. Melissa, although she was looking through the entire city, could buy nothing. Thus she cooked all the food which she had found in the kitchen.

Late at night, Melissa, after she had worked for the entire day, bothered and tired out, at last fell onto the couch.

### In the garden

  


#### I

The next day all were grumpy, all were easily angry, because their heads were hurting.

When the sun had now risen high, Grumio at last got up. He left from the couch and rushed into the kitchen. Although he was looking in all the jars, he could find no food with which to prepare dinner. Very angry, he headed for Melissa, who was resting in the garden, and as soon as he arrived,

"You are a pest! You are a scoundrel!" he exclaimed. "Why did you cook all the food? By what means can I cook without food? Now I understand the thing! Yesterday you prepared the best dinner, because you yourself want to be the cook!"

Melissa had barely begun a response, when Clemens ran headlong into the garden. "You hid the wax tablets!" He accused in turn. "Where are the wax tablets? Where the pens? Where the papyrus? When nothing is in the right place, I cannot work. Perhaps you want to bring about nothing for me, because you yourself want to be the secretary!

Melissa, although she wanted to escape, "Clemens, the study is rearranged, because it was neglected," she explained. "Grumio, yesterday the shopkeepers were gone, thus I could not obtain more food."

However neither Clemens nor Grumio heard her, but with many groans hurried to the kitchen to more wine.

#### II

Then Melissa, who at last was giving up tears, "Alas! How hard is the life of a slave-girl!" she said to herself. "For, although I work hard every day, I please nobody, nobody praises me, but they always unjustly accuse."

While Melissa was lamenting the state of things, Metella, who had looked for her for a long time, was approaching. Who, when she caught sight of Melissa crying, was moved with pity. She took the miserable slave-girl in her embrace and asked,

"Melissa, why are you crying?"

Melissa, who at once turned herself in the embrace of the mistress, responded, "I am crying, because Grumio and Clemens reproach me."

Metella suddenly felt tired and weary. "However, I do not reproach you," she says, while she dries Melissa's tears with the edge of her dress. "I praise you. Look! You arrange my hair very well. You arrange my dress very well. Perhaps Grumio and Clemens do not praise you; but I praise you, because you carefully take care of me.

"It is necessary for me to punish the slaves, because it is not proper for them to reproach you. But angry slaves are not your concern. Thus, come with me, for I have a book, which I want you to recite. The book is romantic, and tells the story of the most beautiful Callirhoe, who, having endured many misfortunes, arrived at a happy life."

### Callirhoe

Callirhoe was a Greek girl, who lived in Syracuse for a long time, so beautiful that a crowd of kings and chiefs headed for her.

Who, however, married nobody of them, but the young man most beautiful and dear. They, angered by the audacity of the new husband, parted against whom, so that he struck his wife close by with envy.

She fell to the ground unconscious. Relatives, who believed that she had been killed, buried her in the most splendid tomb. Then the robbers and pirates, who had taken her, sold her to a certain chief, who was a man of the best character and was of the highest honors.

Now she understood that she was pregnant. Moved, she turned in her mind if she should marry the master and give a son to the father, or remain faithful to her husband.

With the volume finished, Melissa was looking for the second, when Metella asked the slave-girls, smiling,

"Whom do you choose, Chaereas or Dionysius?"

"Because he is the most beautiful, Chaereas," one slave-girl said, "especially when he returns from the gym."

"Juno!" another dissented. "Perhaps he is more often around lovers than a wife! I choose Dionysius, because he is the most kind and the most shining--he even values women!"

As soon as Melissa brought in her scroll, Metella asked, "Melissa, whom do you choose?"

"I disregard both Chaerean and Dionysius," she responds, "for one is a blockhead, who despairs too quickly, the other a tyrant, who deceives too arrogantly; and both are insane with suspicion or envy. I do not praise them, but Callirhoe, who is strong and clever, and Polycharmus, because he is a man of great wisdom, and kind with the greatest faith."

"But he does not love Callirhoe!" the first slave-girl exclaimed.

Melissa, while she sadly looked at Metella, said, "Alas, I agree. Indeed he does not love Callirhoe."

### Rectina

Metella says greetings to her friend Rectina

How are you doing in the country, my dearest friend?

When I had heard that you came down to the Roman country, I at once decided to take you! Thus how fortunate we are, for in three days, on the Ninth, my son Quintus will celebrate a birthday--you should be here, my darling, you really should.

Alas, how quickly the children grow, Rectina! How quickly old age, which at once was creeping, now heads for us with flying wings!

But it recalls: on my birthday my Lucius gave me a slave-girl most learned and beautiful--to whom, truthfully, I am dictating this letter! Who can deny that her hand is of the greatest elegance? And look, she is so modest that, when she writes those words, she blushes!

I ask you, having entered the modest house, to stay for some days. I promise that you will find all that you are accustomed to have. They say to me that we are more urban today than you Romans are. Whether they say the truth or not, it is for you yourself to decide.

A certain new slave-girl, named Melissa--how apt, what a sweet name it is!--recently brought new sophistication to me. She speaks the Latin language better than a Roman girl, and when she recites Greek words, she extends the scene before my eyes, and lastly and especially, she arranges my dresses more fully, my hair higher than the other slave-girls.

But perhaps which art will soon be obsolete, for I heard, both struck and excited, that the new emperor will bring a Jewish wife!

I ask: in what way do Jewish mistresses wear their hair? Whether like Roman mistresses, they arrange it with the greatest work, or in the common fashion, they hide it under veils? All such things must be said by you to me! Therefore come as soon as possible, my Rectina; for here we Pompeians live about all the good without any of the bad. Every day I wait in front of the door for your arrival. Goodbye!

## Stage 3: In the shop

  


### In the forum

Metella, when she had ordered Grumio to cook the most delicious dinner, Clemens to administer the dancing-girl and the dwarves, she handed over to Melissa, who was more prudent than the mistress, a bag, and both departed from the house to the forum, to buy a gift for Quintus. Metella, because she now knew what was to be given to him, was hardly anxious.

Melissa caught sight of a certain shop in the forum, but Metella responded, "These togas are too inelegant."

When they had reached another shop, Melissa said, "This merchant demands too much."

At last in the third shop, which was of Marcellus, who had negligent slaves but sold the best togas with fair prices, they bought a male toga for Quintus, because he was of age.

With the toga purchased, Metella was walking through the streets slowly and carefully so that she would not lower the toga into the mud or brush it on the walls or the passers-by. She said to Melissa, chatting,

"I would like to know what you did, after the neighbor boy loved you, while you were a slave-girl in Greece. Did your mistress ever know of the love? And how did you make the journey here to Pompeii, your home for so long? Do not keep my mind in suspense, but tell me the whole thing at once!"

### Melissa about herself

For a long time we hid the love, but at last it was revealed, for the suspicious mistress, having suddenly returned to the house, found him in my bedroom.

When she had taken away the flames and the whip, she interrogated me about the lover. Neither strong nor very smart, I was so beside myself that I held back the thing and, terrified, quickly told her everything. Then the cruel mistress, to divide us, held me, captured, inside.

How miserable life was for me! I never saw the sun, I never walked through the streets, I never again went to see my dearest!

I was crying for many days, when a certain lover moved the bricks from the wall which divided the house so I could pass.

Now it was dangerous for me to stay in the city, having escaped. Therefore, when winter was quickly approaching, we boarded a ship bound for Syria. The sea was calm, the course certain, while we sailed in sight of the shore, when a great storm crushed the ship on the rocks. The ship groaned and broke, water flowed in everywhere. Then I held for certain that everybody would die.

But by chance, barely living, washed up on shore, I was saved by the waves. There, when I had revived and tried to find my lover in vain, I again despaired more greatly, for I was a poor girl alone in a strange place.

A porter, who had fallen on me wandering on the shore, asked who I was. I told him the thing.

"Life is not a comedy of Menander," he said, before he led me to the house.

"If you give me mercy, not harm," I begged, "when you sell me as a slave-girl or as a hairdresser, you will obtain the best price."

Urged on by the hope of profits, the next day he took me into Tyre, where he sold me to a slave-trader for a great price. In whose ship, bound in chains with many other slaves, I crossed the sea to here.

Therefore that, mistress, is how I arrived in Pompeii to your family; how having entered, which I served longer, I go happier.

### The mirror

Metella, having returned to the house, carefully put Quintus's toga on her couch, so it would not become creased. then she washed in the bath of the house, for she had to hurry. When she had wanted to learn the end of the narration, she kept Melissa narrating with her.

Alas! With the narration finished, she was in the bath for so long that her fingers had become wrinkled. She fearfully sent Melissa to summon the slave-girls. Whom she ordered,

"Give me the most beautiful dress, and arrange it most elegantly, for my friend Rectina, who is accustomed to live as the wife of a Roman senator, will be here as a guest to celebrate Quintus's birthday."

Metella, dressed in the most sumptuous things, ordered the slave-girls to prepare the dining room for dinner, Melissa to arrange her hair.

In the mirror, Metella was examining not her hair but Melissa. With the narration known, Metella was looking at Melissa with new eyes.

"How dramatic the life of Melissa was!" she said to herself. "How it took the mind! I erred greatly, when I assumed to myself that she had neither strength nor much cleverness, for such misfortunes to be overcome soundly show that she has both.

"How this recalls me to girlish dreams! But my life, born of the mistress of the Metelli, was to be looked back upon. But now the toga, having been seen in the mirror, says to me that Quintus is a man, and, with life having flowed past, now I must be careful of such.

"How often have I desired, when Melissa turns my hair with soft hands, when she fixes a golden necklace around my neck, when, while she hangs shining jewels from my ears, she so softly grazes them, to rise from the chair, to take her into my arms?"

### On the couch

It happened at once.

The decorations forgotten, the chair overturned, Metella, having embraced Melissa, kissed her. First Melissa accepted the kiss, the dutiful slave-girl.

Not now, for Metella's lips pressed on her, while she, having received, most audaciously dragged her to the couch with her.

Having fallen in a heap, both loosened the belt of the other. Metella raised the edges of her dress, now very wrinkled, so that she could touch Melissa with learned fingers. Meanwhile Melissa kissed her mistress and licked her, from her mouth, past her neck, with loosened fastenings, across her maternal breasts with her soft tongue.

Nor was Metella idle; like a sacred cat of Isis which scratches hard on the wall of the temple again and again, Metella on the slave-girl. Indeed her hairpins loosened from labor now did not hold up her hair. When the other dragged her hair, the other affixed in her head, and was urged on to more labors.

Both held back nothing, but clung to the other, and now with soft stroking, now with fierce scratching, swelled to the greatest passion.

When at last, content and finished, they lay on Quintus's toga in loose hair and fastenings, naked with imprints, Metella, semi-awake, was embracing her Melissa, and Melissa was playing with Metella's loosened hair and crushed dress, when she began to cry.

Metella, moved, asked, "Why are you crying?"

Melissa explained, "I am crying because I am anxious. For your friend Rectina will visit you soon, a very urbane mistress, but you are not prepared to accept her. All my work was ruined; you cannot wear your best dress, and there is not enough time to decorate your hair. What will she believe of us now?"

Metella tried to soothe her. "My Melissa," she said, "what Rectina will believe about my hair or about my clothes, I don't give a hoot. It is easy to always remain elegant for women never indulging themselves. Indeed when Pliny had left from Rectina's house, I never mocked her for her appearance."

Melissa responded, "It is not your concern, mistress, because you are not a hairdresser."

### The dinner

When a cheaper dress was brought out, the hair was put back together in an easier way, Metella was administrating the slaves and slave-girls decorating the dining-roon, and tasting food cooked by Grumio.

Soon, when the dinner was nearly prepared, Metella gave a kiss to Caecilius having returned to the house, and exclaimed, "My Lucius, I love you very much." Metella was admired because she told the truth.

At once Caecilius asked, "What happened?"

Metella lamented, "Alas! Destruction fell on confusion. The gift for Quintus, a most precious toga, having fallen on the ground, was crushed by the overturned chair. Now the chair has a broken chair, the toga many wrinkles. What shall we do?"

"Don't despair," Caecilius responded, "for my gift to Quintus is also a toga, which he can wear today."

"Dearest husband!" Metella exclaimed. "You always know what gift will please greatly!"

Having said this, the dinner was prepared. Grumio had cooked a baby boar, Caecilius had tried too much wine, having eaten, Clemens brought in the dancer and the dwarves. Thus the birthday of Quintus was celebrated with the best dinner, and when Rectina wore the most elegant clothes, Metella didn't care.


End file.
